Let’s watch some games Bobcats!
Media coverage is crucial to any attempts at establishing a professional gaming scene. Be it virtual or in person, competitive gaming requires:
- Exposure to the public – The public is necessary to competitive gaming, in order to prove to potential sponsors and to generate revenue to gaming companies, sponsors, host-organizations, and players. By providing exposure gaming is able to establish viability for companies to come in and provide funding.
- Sponsorship – Similar to extreme sports, racing, or other competitive games, the life blood of these is money. In order to generate revenue, it’s necessary to prove the viability of them to potential sponsors, who will take a risk investing in advertisements or sponsorship. This sponsorship is then used to pay the players, the host-organization, and promote the viewing of the sport.
- Streaming Platforms – Unlike football and basketball, E-Sports doesn’t tend to get media coverage from the mainstream media. Recent developments have led to certain games or world championships ending up on ESPN and ESPN 2, but this is still relatively rare. In order to increase exposure and get around the media gatekeeping, private platforms are used to host, view, and create gaming or other content. Examples of this are Twitch.tv, Youtube.com, and Mixer.com. These content platforms are used as sources of income for content creators, primarily gaming content, and are viewed widely. These allow for the generation of funds through Ad sponsorship, or through community subscriptions (similar to Pay-per-view, only on a monthly basis).
These 3 key aspects of media coverage are what allows for competitive E-Sports, and other unique types of content creation to exist and prosper. Twitch.tv, for example, hosts an average of 15 million viewers a day. Youtube averages 2.3 billion views a day. This is very attractive to Ad and other sponsors looking to appeal to an audience that averages between the age of 18-35, and are predominantly male.
TXST E-Sports 